Recent App Reviews

I expect innovation, not regurgitation from Google. While enthusiastic about Google's deal with AdMob finally going through, I'm less than impressed with their new proclamation of partnering with Sony for a Google web TV. Don't get me wrong, I love Google and Sony, but talk about being late to the party.

Why am I annoyed? Aside from Google wanting to do things other than what they're really, really good at?

You may or may not read or agree with my game reviews, which is okay, but do yourself a favor and check this RTS game out (regardless if you agree with me). App store link is here. It is called Land Air Sea Warfare, by Isotope 244. I will be posting up a full review next week, but I have to say it's predecessor (Machines At War) is probably one of my all-time mobile favs. Stay tuned for my review, and a full press release later from the developer, but I warn you that you will lose hours and hours of time if you play this game...

iWallpapers (free) was recently released and offers over 15,000 images for your iPhone or iPod touch. There's also a version for the iPad in the App Store. It includes a range of images arranged in 20 categories. You can earn points by uploading additional images and use these points to upgrade to an ad-free version as well use them for other paid apps.

As I wrote in a recent blog post (Are you the Ultimate Movie Buff? Prove it!), I am a movie fan. I'm also an iPhone fan, obviously, so it's nice when the two interests coincide. There was a time when movie producers had to be convinced to build a website to promote a new movie. Now, it's all about apps. Two new movies have done a good job using free apps to drive interest in the corresponding film.

"iStoryTime, a company dedicated to bringing children’s stories to the iPhone and iPad, just released their 31st children’s book today – “Shrek Forever After”. The new book, which is available on iTunes for $1.99, times with the nationwide release of the movie tomorrow." Read on for a video preview, and full press release...

Macworld has a great article listing 11 essential apps for your iPad. These are all paid apps. The one that really caught my eye is Air Video ($2.99), which lets you stream video from your Mac or PC to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. It actually converts the videos on the fly to a format compatible with your device.

If you like trivia and games that test your knowledge, Bible Challenge is one you should own. The objective of the game is to make a path from the first row of squares to the fifth row. You do this in one of four options of game play: hangman, fill in the blanks, true/false questions, or trivia.

I have been a big fan of mind mapping software since my good friend and former co-worker Glenn Ferrel introduced the concept to me nearly 10 years ago. He showed me how a complex project or process with multiple relationships could be easily described and managed using the mind map approach. This allows relationships to be clumped together to help show relationships between concepts and activities. These ideas branch out from a centralized theme or objective and fluidly show the connections between the thoughts, ideas and objectives identified. Unlike more strict and discrete project management tools like Gantt charts, mind maps allow free association/disassociation as ideas formulate, shift and re-synthesize into a more crystalized state. The best us

Have you ever been frustrated because a really fun (or potentially fun) game is marred by one feature? It’s even worse when that feature is critical to game play. Unfortunately, Dungeon Run is just such a game. The game is a nice variation of a cool concept. It looks good, sounds good, and has a nice assortment of levels to keep you busy for a while. Sadly, the controls will make sure that you stay busy on some levels a lot more than you need to. I hope they revisit the controls some day, because it definitely makes the difference between a mediocre and really good game in this case.

A game whose play involves catapulting involves catapulting birds into castles occupied by green pigs hardly sounds like the stuff of a winner. But Angry Birds ($0.99) is the top-selling game in the App Store — and so popular that it got written up in the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago. It has an astonishing 25,000 five-star ratings in the App store. It has two key components: it's fun and addictive.